Cold! Oh fuck, that’s cold!
I sit up with a gasp. “What the fuck!”
A lot of things register quickly. I’m on the sofa, my shirt is drenched, and there’s someone standing over me, but it’s too fucking bright to see who it is.
I raise my hand, shielding my eyes. “Rafe?”
“How long have you been lying here like this?” Rafe demands, sounding annoyed.
I groan again. Why would he open the blinds? I’m disoriented, dizzy, thirsty, and my retinas feel like they’ve been burned.
“I don’t know. What time is it?” I pluck at my wet T-shirt.
“Six p.m.”
Which means it’s only been four hours since Blake left. It feels like I’ve been out for far longer than that.
My gaze meets Rafe’s. “Why are you here?”
“Alessio called me. I was in a meeting in Albany. Drove here as soon as I could.”
“You didn’t need to do that. I’m fine.”
Rafe rolls his eyes. “You smell like you bathed in whiskey.”
“I think I slept it off. Mostly.”
“I’m taking you to the park. You need to be taken for a walk and aired out.”
“I’m not a fucking puppy,” I mutter.
His gaze narrows. “What’s that?”
Ugh. That’s his don’t-give-me-that-shit voice. He’s not gonna leave until I do as he says.
“Never mind.” I push off the sofa and get to my feet. That’s a mistake. Everything wobbles until Rafe grabs my elbow and steadies me.
He sighs. “I should have come here as soon as you said you needed the plane for Blake. Why did you let her go?”
I extract my elbow from his grip. “Because it was the right thing to do. There’s nothing more lethal than a woman who makes you want to do the right thing, is there?”
The hard lines of his expression soften. “C’mon. Go put on a new shirt, and let’s go. You can wax philosophical once we’re outside.”
We take a taxi to Central Park. The place is crowded with tourists, dog walkers, and old men hunched over chessboards. We grab coffee from a truck and amble down a winding path.
“I never brought Blake here,” I tell Rafe. “Tried to once—the day we got the pakhan. Maksim showed up just as we were about to go, and that was that.” Now I’m never going to get the chance to take that walk with her. My throat tightens.
“Tell me what happened this morning.”
“She nearly died from that bullet wound, Rafe. I forced her into this marriage, into this world, and she nearly fucking died because of it. So I gave her the freedom to make her own choice.” I exhale. “She chose to go back to a normal life over a life with me.”
Rafe sips on his coffee. “Why?”
“Probably because she didn’t want to end up like my mom. Killed while out for dinner.”
“She was worried about her safety?”
“She didn’t say that explicitly. She didn’t say anything, really. She just said she was going to leave, and the next day—today—she was gone.”
